His Name Was Draco Malfoy
by mountain ash
Summary: Draco Malfoy is sent by the Dark Lord to kill Hermione Granger, but something unexpected happens, leaving Draco uncapable of completing his task. Dramione!
1. Chapter 1

**His Name was Draco Malfoy**

His name was Draco Malfoy, 16 year old Death Eater, and he had a mission.

Her name was Hermione Granger. She was a known supporter and friend of Harry Potter, actively defied the Dark Lord, and a Mudblood. He was to kill her.

It was hypothetically an easy task- find her, draw his wand, utter two words, then remove the body if necessary. However, this was a smart Mudblood-if she saw him, or if his life-ending curse missed, she would defend herself-and she had considerably more skilled with a wand than many other witches and wizards. She could scream, shout, draw attention to herself in any way, and he would have to run, and attempt again later-only without the element of surprise.

He was in the forest near her house, waiting for her to leave her room. He could see her light on up in her room on the second floor, and if he squinted, he could make out her figure on a window seat, writing.

She was always writing, wasn't she?

He almost smiled. Almost.

He could imagine the look of surprise on her face were he to waltz into her house and knock on the door-she would open it unthinkingly, expecting a younger sibling, or one of her parents. She would freeze, wide-eyed and horrified, while he smiled and raised his wand.

Draco would have loved to do just that. Unfortunately, that plan had a low chance of success- what if she screamed, or her parents saw her, or some drooling two-year-old little sister saw him and told all of her two-year-old friends?

No, waiting to get her alone, while less satisfying, was more likely to end with a dead body to help douse the fighting fire of that Harry Potter.

Satisfied that she wasn't about to leave her room any time soon, he ghosted back into the shadows of the trees, black cloak blending in with the growing blackness. Only his pale face failed to disappear into the almost night- his smirking face, pale as bleached bone.

This all would have been very dramatic had he not ghosted backwards to a spot right between a mother bear and her cubs.

He never saw it coming.

A slash from a set of deadly claws, a rip from a set of teeth sharp like the knives he had seen stabbed into victims of the Dark Lord.

Then, a trickle of blood running down his forehead. It reached his eyelashes, then drip-dropped down over his eyes. His vision tainted red.

Then, his world went from red to black.

He may have awoken sometime later, he wasn't sure. Wherever he was, it was light, and warm-summer air trapped somewhere? He thought he saw a girl with a bushy flame for hair, a girl who was somewhat familiar. No, he mustn't be awake-the only girl he knew with hair like that was Hermione Granger, a girl on the opposite side of The War, a girl he had been ordered to kill. Why should she help him, much less move him from the ground where he lay bleeding?

He lapsed back into black.


	2. the cavern

**Disclaimer: I am not JKR. I do not own Harry Potter.**

Hermione sat in front of her harp, fingers absentmindedly strumming the long strings. She was in a cavern out in the woods behind her house. It was her special place, a place no one else knew about.

A place she could be alone.

She had found it when she was six, wandering out in the woods, hoping to stumble across one of those beautiful barn owls she had seen earlier.

It was by pure chance that she had found this cavern. There had been a tree, huge and towering, with all kinds of branches and roots that were so big, they protruded from the ground like octopus tentacles from the sea.

She had decided to climb the tree-there would undoubtedly be a spectacular view at the top.

But when she went to step on one of the roots to give her tiny six-year-old legs a boost, she had not counted on the moss that coated them like a quilted blanket to be as slippery as it was. Her foot had slid to the side, and fallen in the space between the roots.

But there was something different about this particular space between roots-there was no ground to halt her fall-she had fallen straight through, into this cavern.

Hermione had been scared. At six years old she was afraid of the dark, and it was plenty dark in this place she had fallen into. Smaller roots from the tree criss-crossed their way down all of the walls. She had used these to climb out and run all the way home.

But she hadn't stopped thinking about that cavern. After two weeks, she eventually worked up the nerve to go find that cavern again (with a flask light this time).

That cavern became the place where Hermione wrote poems when it was too loud and distracting in her house. It became the place that she practiced her harp, and then other instruments as her interest in music grew. It became her favorite place in the world. She stashed drums, harps, eventually one of every type of instrument she played. She had trained the roots to grow in such a way that they could serve as shelves for the books, poems, and other things she dragged down here.

It had been her place to be alone.

At least, it was a place for her to be alone.

Hermione was snapped back to the present. She looked up from her harp, to the figure lying on the make-shift bed by her "fireplace." (It was actually a whole bunch of candles right next to each other-the cavern's light source.)

He was pale of both skin and hair. He was dressed in robes black as polished obsidian. A tattoo of a skull with a snake slithering out of the mouth adorned the arm that lay across his chest. If his eyes had been open, they would have been blue-grey. She had known him for almost six years, and hated him for just as long.

His name was Draco Malfoy, and he was a cruel monster that didn't deserve help from anyone.

But that wasn't what she had came to her mind when she unexpectedly came across his helpless, dying body on her way to the cavern. He had been bleeding heavily from slash marks across his back, forehead, and right leg, life rapidly fading from his eyes. He hadn't looked like a lying, good-for-nothing serpent with blood snaking down his face, covering his eyes.

He had looked helpless.

So she had carried him here, snatched some blankets and pillows from a nook in the wall, and made a hasty bed to set him on by the candles she had lit as fast as she could without accidentally setting something on fire.

Then she had rushed around the shelves, snatching a first aid kit (when she was eight she had cut her arm when the branch on the tree she was climbing unexpectedly broke), and set to work stopping the bleeding.

Judging by the claw marks and what she knew about these woods to begin with, she thought he had been mauled by the mother bear that sometimes frequented this forest.

He had been lucky. If the mother bear had struck a little to the left, Draco would have died, for she would have hit a major artery.

She had her work cut out for her as she had set about him with the white bandages- there was so much blood, and every time she thought she was done, she would notice that one of the previously snow white bandages would have a crimson flower in full bloom in the middle-the blood would have already soaked through completely.

The worst part had been when his leg had gotten infected. That had triggered a fever that didn't break for an hour and a half. The only thing that kept him from screamed bloody murder in pain was unconsciousness. He had passed out right before she had picked him up and carried him here.

It worried her a bit that he had yet to wake, but she was mostly relieved that he hadn't- she wanted to pretend that her blond patient was not Draco Malfoy.

At least he wouldn't be armed when he awoke-she had taken his wand as soon as his bleeding subsided. It was now hidden in one of the many nooks and crannies in this cavern.(the walls, which were roots holding up soil, were practically made of nooks and crannies)

He was stable now, as she watched him, though it was a little unnerving how unnaturally still he lay-she half expected him to jump up and try to kill her.

Kill her. That had probably been his reason for being so close to her house. She could clearly see the dark mark on his pale skin, and it would make sense for the Dark Lord to want friends of his opponent dead.

Hermione's fingers stopped strumming her harp. She stood up, and walked to where she kept her paper and pens. She felt like poetry.

She sat down on a pillow, in a little nook where she could see Malfoy, but he couldn't see her. Pen in hand, she set about writing a poem.


	3. stirrings

**Disclaimer-I don't own Harry Potter, never will own harry Potter, and never have owned Harry Potter**

Something caught Hermione's attention, pulling her out of her poem. She looked automatically towards Malfoy.

He had stirred a little, but not much. Not enough to prove he was awake, anyways.

Cautiously, Hermione made her way over to his "bed." His eyes were still closed. His breathing was still even. She took his pulse, and found it at a low sleepy pace-the same pace it had been when she had checked it during his fever.

Certain that Malfoy hadn't awoken (and why should he-the bear mauling was more than enough to send him into a coma), Hermione went back to her poem.

Malfoy had been in this cavern for just over three days now, and Hermione still had yet to get used to his present.

Not long later, she penned her poem's final verse. Now she just had to edit it, to make it perfect. She grabbed a blue-inked pen, and began crossing put, adding lines, and changing words.

Hermione was content to sit there, scrawling in blue over her poem, making it perfect by candlelight. So she was reluctant to get up, even when she had made every correction possible.

Something irked her-something was not perfect about her poem. She could ask someone, but she was alone in her cavern. No, wait-she was not alone, though she wasn't sure unconscious Malfoy counted as having company. Still, she felt the need to read her piece aloud, even if her audience would not give her feedback, or even hear the poem.

She stood up, and walked over to where Malfoy lay, and cleared her throat.

Draco's world was one of blackness.

He felt awful, though that was still better than he had felt hours ago. Had it been hours? Or days? Or were his speculations off entirely? In a world of blackness, time was hard to measure.

The last thing he remembered wasn't even a reality-it had to be just something his mind had regurgitated, made up of things he had been thinking about in the last day or so.

Still, he remembered it clearly-after he had blacked out, he had seen Hermione.

He fought to open his eyes, but they were so heavy, like chains that weighed him down, keeping him in the blackness.

Then, he heard a voice.

Hermione. It was Hermione Granger's voice. She was saying something. Draco fought the impulse to strain his ears and listen-why should he care what the Mudblood had to say?

But her voice drifted down through the layers of black to his ears anyway, and he conceded that at least listening to her would take his mind off of his wretched situation.

_The thrush sings a haunting, wavering C_

_Like a flame, it rises warm and bright through the trees_

_Like a flame, it enlightens the forest_

_Driving eerie silence to the farthest_

_corner_

_Like a flame, this note draws others to it,_

_Robins have heard this song, and join it_

_Like a flame, it is warm_

_And for those forlorn_

_It lets those who stopped singing for the cold_

_Can sing again in warmth._

Draco noticed that the last bit didn't rhyme, but that didn't matter. He wasn't really listening to the words as much as the way they were spoken. When the voice speaking read the words, they were so uplifting. Draco felt hope.

Hope. It was a light, warm, glowing thing, like the flame in Hermione's poem.

Why did he feel hope? He should be bored. The Mudblood was talking to him, and she couldn't possibly have anything worth saying to him.

But her poem was about hope. Yes, that must be why he felt this way.

All the while hope was illuminating his black world. Hope was lifting the heavy chains on his eyes that held him here. He tried once again to open his eyes, and found that he could lift them a tiny fraction. Now he had a tangible reason to hope.

He tried harder, and finally his eyelids dragged away from his eyes.

He could see. He was in a cave of some sort, with soft light coming from somewhere. And standing in front of him, piece of paper in hand, was Hermione Granger.

He tried to reach for his wand-he still had orders to kill her. But he couldn't move his arms. It would have been futile anyway- his wand was gone.

Unable to kill her or in any other way mangle her, he settled for fixing her with a glare-trying to convey to her with his eyes that as soon as he could, he would end her life. She knew what the Mark on his arm meant.

His freedom from the blackness was short lived though. After but a few seconds he sank back into inky blackness.

Draco tried to hold onto the words of the poem-while it was not a flawless poem concocted by a professional poet, it was something to hold onto in the blackness. He needed something to hold onto if he planned on recovering and fulfilling his orders.

Hermione finished her poem. She knew it wasn't very good, but the only way to get better was to practice.

Then, Malfoy opened his eyes.

He glared at her. The look in his eyes clearly said 'I will kill you. I can't kill you now, but I will.'

Hermione didn't doubt it.

Slowly, grudgingly, his eyes closed again.

He didn't stir again that day.


	4. Push, push harder

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter**

Hermione sat in her cavern, reading from her leather-bound book of Robert Frost poetry. Every once in a while, she would look up to check to be sure Malfoy wasn't stirring like yesterday.

He was still lying motionless by the candles, eyes closed, and flickering light haunting his pale face.

She thought then about how he had glared at her, how murderous the desires he had shared her with just one look.

Why was she even helping him? He wanted to kill her, for crying out loud. Perhaps it was her conscience talking. After all, she couldn't leave him to die.

Thinking about that one waking moment yesterday brought her to thinking about how to get him to wake up again. He had woken just as she had finished her poem. Maybe she could get him to wake again by reading poetry. She looked down at the little poetry book she had gotten from her mom on her ninth birthday. Here were plenty of poems for her to choose from.

She flipped absently through the pages, waiting for something to catch her eye. Robert Frost was an impressive poet, and there were plenty of selections for her to read.

Then, one caught her eye. She read it through-it was good.

She walked over to Malfoy's unconscious form, took a deep breath, and plunged into the poem.

_Some say the world will end in fire, _

_Some say in ice_

_From what I've tasted of desire, _

_I hold with those who favor fire_

_But if it had to perish twice,_

_I think I know enough of hate to say_

_That for destruction ice is also great, _

_And would suffice._

Draco felt as though the poem was piercing him with sabers of ice and knives of fire.

It was very different from the last poem, and obviously by a different, more competent poet. But the subject matter was very different from the uprising one the day before.

_Some say the world will end in fire._

Draco imagined the Mudblood running screaming through a burning forest identical to the one behind her house. Fire leapt from tree to tree, leaving pillars of ash standing as memorials to Granger's hopeless flight.

The image propelled him farther from the blackness, flames lighting his empty, unconscious world.

_Some say in ice._

A different image flooded Draco's mind. It was snowing. That Mudblood was drowning in a frigid sea. A thin layer of ice coated the still water. She hung on to it desperately, using it to deep from drowning. Her face was turning blue, her eyes were closing.

Draco used these images to push himself up and out of the blackness. It was as though he had a lead weight holding him down in the cold black waters of the deep sea. He had to get to the surface.

Push. Push harder. It seemed an eternity that be pushed little by little, but he had no way to measure the time.

Eventually, he found hid eyelids, and pushed them back.

He saw flame.

Just like the flame in the poem. Just like the flame he pictured burning Hermione.

Candles. Candles made this fire-he was surrounded by candlesticks topped with a flame like Granger's hair. He turned his head a little, looking for the Mudblood.

He had just found a way to keep the promise he had made with his eyes the last time he had awaken.

He had found a way to kill her.

He glared at her, catching her wide eyes. Without breaking eye-contact, he swept his arm out around him, knocking over the candles. The flames came together in one large pool of brightness and deadliness.

He smiled at the Mudblood, watching the fallen candle's reflection in her eyes.

Hermione was shocked. Malfoy had been stupid enough to start a fire _when he couldn't even get up_. She sighed. In making good on his promise to kill her, he was going to kill himself.

She drew her wand from her pocket, dowsing the fire before it could become a real hazard.

As Malfoy saw this, he snarled in hate and disappointment. She shook her head and put her wand away.

"Don't you know that you can't even stand, much less escape a fire just now, and yet you start a fire anyway? How stupid are you, ferret? In attempting to kill me, you were killing yourself."

Malfoy continued his death glare, though with a touch of uncertainty now coloring his gaze. His eyes remained this way until they closed again. His hands continued to twitch, as though they were attempting to push away a heavy weight. But eventually, they fell to his sides, still as the grave.

Hermione went and got a blanket from one of the little nooks where she stored all types of things for keeping warm. After a short browse, she selected a forest-green blanket and walked back to where Malfoy lay. She draped the blanket over him. It was a thick, heavy blanket, and might weigh his arms down the next time he woke. It would also keep him a bit warmer than he was now.

Hermione had decided on what she thought was the best way to annoy Malfoy-even though she knew it would only enrage him further, she wanted to do it anyway. This was just too good a chance to pass up.

She would be nice to him. Make sure he was warm; talk to him-he would figure out what she was doing and be absolutely furious.

Draco was once again in the darkness of unconsciousness. He had failed to kill Granger, but that was not the thought that dominated his tired mind.

She had said- "Don't you know that you can't even stand, much less escape a fire just now, and yet you start a fire anyway? How stupid are you, ferret? In attempting to kill me, you were killing yourself."

And it was true. How stupid was he? Trying to kill her when he probably would have needlessly killed himself? He had almost killed himself in his assassination attempt.

But the Dark Lord had ordered her death. He could not fail the Dark Lord.

Then another though came to his mind. Why did he not hear of Death Eaters being dispatched to find him? Why had his Mark not burned?

Draco tried to push these bothersome thoughts away, but in a world of nothingness, he had nothing with which to distract himself. He had to face them.

Why was he trying to kill the Mudblood? Because it was the last order he had received from the Dark Lord. He felt the need to fulfill it simply to push away any thoughts that he may have been abandoned.

Why did he hate Granger? The Dark Lord had told him to. He felt obligated to follow the Dark Lord's wishes.

Why hadn't his Lord made any move to help Draco as far as he could see? Because his Lord didn't care about him.

Why was Hermione helping him?

To that question, he had no answer. It was a mystery to him why his enemy would help him when someone he had pledged his life to wouldn't. Someone for whom he had tried to make life miserable back at Hogwarts was not doing the same to him. Why was this so? Draco felt the need to know, but try as he might, he could not find the answer.


	5. puppy

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or its characters. **

Hermione sat back behind her harp, trying to stifle her laughter.

Last night, in bed, she had thought about Malfoy waking up and pulling the candle stunt. She had put a heavy blanket on him in an attempt to weigh him down should he awake and catch her off-guard.

But she knew it wasn't enough.

That was why she had come up with a brilliant scheme to make sure Malfoy stayed still, while still remembering her promise to herself to be nice to him, no matter how he tried to kill her.

She had brought her golden retriever puppy to the cavern today.

If she put it on his chest when he awoke, it would probably surprise him, effectively keeping him still long enough for her to draw her wand. Also, she could tell herself that it wasn't unkind because everyone likes puppies right?

Hermione continued to giggle.

Draco thought he could hear Hermione giggling, but he was sure he was wrong. The Mudblood didn't giggle.

Last night (or was it last year? Time didn't run like it should in his deep black world) he had made some surprising revelations.

the Dark Lord didn't care about him

the Dark Lord wasn't sending anyone to retrieve Draco

Hermione was being nicer to him than the Dark Lord

He had no idea _why_ she was being nice

Draco would have shaken his head if he could. The Mudblood was being nice to him, so he had decided to be nice back. It couldn't hurt, right? If she turned out to be just like the Dark Lord and his father said, he could always kill her.

Being nice to the Mudblood. That would be a stretch.

He pushed again at the menacing, inky blackness. It budged a little, but not much. He tried to cast his mind back to what lead to his not being able to control his limbs.

Ah yes. The bear. Draco quickly pulled his mind away from that thought. He couldn't face the red and black images his mental eye conjured up at the thought of the bear.

He needed something to concentrate on. He chose to concentrate on the loosing battle he was fighting, trying to push away the blackness like it was a swimming pool of molasses and he was at the very bottom.

And, to his immense surprise, he succeeded a little bit. He could hear someone strumming the harp. Presumably Granger.

It was beautiful-she was a better musician than poet. The music was like golden water gently lapping against him, pushing him farther away from the blackness and closer to the shore.

He didn't even need to push. He just had to float it her music. How he had tried to open his eyes and see her, see his surroundings, see and escape, he hadn't given a thought to his other senses. His ears where music-starved.

He didn't open his eyes. This wasn't like trying to push away the black like it was a blindfold- it was like listening underwater. It wasn't quite the same as listening above ground. He could hear, but the sounds where different, more watery, less piercing. And infinitely more peaceful.

He lay there, reveling in the music, _happy_.

Hermione was sitting next to Draco's still form, waiting. He would eventually wake up. She had moved her harp so that she could sit beside him and still play.

After all, she needed to keep watch over him. And be there to put the puppy on his chest when he awoke.

That was it. There was no other reason.

She sat there, playing for what must have been an hour. Eventually, she couldn't keep quiet.

She sighed, and then began.

"Malfoy?" No response. Of course. She hadn't expected one.

"Malfoy, do you remember last week? Anything about it? Do you know why you're here?"

His face remained still.

"You were mauled by a bear. I've been trying to help you as best I can, but I'm no Madam Promfrey. I can't take you to a Muggle hospital, because they would wonder who you are. I can't take you to a wizarding hospital, because they _do _know who you are."

Hermione wondered if she should share the next little bit of information, or save it for later. No, it would be better to tell him-it will matter a lot to him, she thought.

"Malfoy? One more thing. You might not be able to walk, even when you've recovered completely."

As Hermione watched, Draco finally reacted to her words. He tensed. He wasn't moving yet, hadn't even opened his eyes, but was not all together unconscious- he could hear her.

Hermione stopped strumming the harp strings.

Draco frowned. Hermione thought for a moment that he hadn't wanted her to stop playing, and then dismissed the thought. He was just thinking over the little piece of information she had given him.

All the same, she started strumming again. Draco's face lightened.

Draco would have sighed in content if he could. For a moment there Hermione had stopped playing. He had been sure he would sink back into the darkness. Then, she had started again.

Draco contemplated what Hermione had said. He might not ever walk again.

He quickly shied away from the thought-it would serve only to depress him.

He worked up his strength. He was going to push away the black veil between him and the waking world.

He wanted to tell Hermione something.

The blackness, while still like a rock pinning him down, now seemed a slightly smaller rock. One that he could push aside easier.

And then, the blackness changed.

It was no longer his hated enemy, something he had to push aside. Now, it was just the blackness of his closed eyes. All he had to do was open them.

He took a deep breath, and opened them.

To his immense shock, he found that he could not see Hermione. He couldn't see anything past the lump of yellow fur drooling on his chest.

There. Was. A. Puppy. On. His. Chest.

Draco stared at that puppy. This must be some higher power punishing him.

Draco Malfoy _did not_ like puppy drool on his robes.

He opened his mouth, and spoke one sentence.

"Get this _thing_ off of me."

Hermione laughed and laughed after Draco finally closed his eyes again. His face at the sight of the puppy had been priceless. The perfect mix of horror, anger, and worry (presumably over the drool that had collected on his robes).

The puppy trick had been perfect, but she wouldn't do it again. Malfoy had been surprised this time, caught off guard. But next time he would certainly try to swat it off his robes, and this puppy had just reached teething age. It might mistake his hand for a chew toy.

Looking at him, Hermione was instantly somber. She had been telling the truth when she said he might not ever walk again. While he was no longer openly bleeding rivers, his leg, back, and forehead were still pretty grisly to look at.

But there was a chance. He might walk again despite the odds.

But the odds stacked against him were very high.

Sighing, she went back to strumming her harp.

Draco was slightly disappointed. He had planned on saying thank you to Hermione.

Well, at least he had said something. That was progress.

Oh well. He could try again. He would wake up again. He would say the words before he was distracted.

But for now, he could just listen to her play harp, and dream. Tomorrow would get there eventually.


	6. Distractions

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

When your world was black, there were few distractions. Your mind went unobstructed to places you had previously forbidden it to go, think the unthinkable. Because was nothing to keep you mind from going to these places-no school to sit through, no friends to talk to, no orders to carry out. These things kept your mind sufficiently distracted.

So, understandably, when Draco's world had gone back, his mind had started to go places he had previously kept closed off. Thoughts such as disloyal questioning about the Dark Lord and his practices- these had always been pushed from his mind by distractions he himself had unconsciously formulated.

Draco's world had been black, nearly lightless, and distractionless for at least a week-he couldn't be certain how long ago he had stood overlooking Hermione's house, planning her demise. In this black time, he had come to some conclusions. The Dark Lord didn't care about him. Oh well, it wasn't as if Draco had thought he had been getting any special favors from him.

The people who were supposed to be his enemies were kinder to him than those who were supposedly his friends, those who were supposed to stand beside him-no surprise there. Those people weren't precisely model friends to begin with.

But then, something had come that could penetrate his inky dark world.

Hermione playing her harp, fingers strumming and plucking the strings like the wind through willow leaves. A sound resonated from those strings that he could float in like an otter floats on the calm sea. Draco loved this one and only distraction-not only did it keep his mind from wandering places he would rather it not be, it was peaceful.

She was playing now. He could imagine her fingers splayed like kelp on the surface of the water across the strings. He had never actually seen her play, or even seen her harp, but he could imagine it.

A whole week, at least. That was how long it had been since Draco had been mauled. In that whole time, he had woken up only three times. He often thought about those times, analyzing them while he was alone with his thoughts.

The first time hadn't even lasted a minute. All he had done was try to move his arms and legs and, when he failed to do that, glare at the person who had saved him. His second time hadn't been much better, though it had lasted longer. He had tried to set fire to this cavern, in an insane attempt to murder Hermione. That had been stupid-he couldn't have gotten away himself. The third time, he had managed to speak, but he hadn't said anything save demanding Hermione get that infernal puppy off of him.

Come to think of it, that had actually been a pretty good joke on Hermione's part. He had been caught completely unawares; no real harm had been done to anything save his robes. But, now that he thought about it, his robes were probably in an irreparable state, slashed by bear claws. Why should he have worried about a little drool?

Draco also had found that there was a significant time stretch between his stirrings, and he had come to the conclusion that waking up tired him. Pushing against unflinching blackness was hard on his mind, let alone disheartening.

As he lay there listening to Hermione play, drifting on her music, he had an idea. Instead of pushing his way through blackness, what if he drifted up through it? He remembered how last time he had opened his eyes, Hermione had been playing the harp, and he had thought the darkness easier to push aside.

He concentrated on the music, using it like a swaying rope to haul himself up with. Her music was watery, like he was hearing it underwater, making it harder to grasp. But grasp it he could when he put his mind to it, mentally concentrating all of her melodies, harmonies, chords, strums and plucks into one strand that could fit in his mental palm. But if he didn't concentrate on it completely, his rope dissolved back into watery, loosely connected notes.

Slowly, the music became more solid, almost as if it was no longer fighting its way through a deep sea to reach him. He was able to pull himself up faster, farther, until he finally broke free of the drowning darkness of unconsciousness.

He opened his eyes.

He could see Hermione next to her harp, lazily, nonchalantly playing the notes that had brought him back to the world of the conscious. Her hair, lit waveringly by the barely sufficient candles she used to light this place, lay splayed across her shoulders. Her hands were white like washed-up beach-logs that have had time to sit and bleach in the sun, though he suspected that her hands hadn't gotten that way due to contact with the sun.

He just lay there, watching her, willing her to continue playing. He didn't speak, or in any way break the spell.

Hermione was smiling-she loved music, weather she was listening or playing. Over the years she had transferred her music books down here, and had a vast supply of music to pick from-she could play harp all day.

Draco smiled to himself as he watched her play. Her long fingers snaking between the strings were mesmerizing. He was as silent as a big cat as it watches its prey, though he didn't intend on slaughtering the object of his gaze.

Hermione really should be more careful, he thought. She had been playing for twenty minutes now, and it didn't look like she was going to check on him any time soon. Someone she was sure was an enemy was one lunge from where she sat, yet she didn't seem to check on him regularly enough. Someday, she would be walking through the woods and get caught unaware and unready by some cat that had been watching her, silent as him.

Well, he couldn't blame her-_he_ should have been more aware of his surroundings when he got in the way of that bear.

Draco forced himself to think of the bear, and all the images that went with it. There were surprisingly few images-his mind seemed to have documented the incident in the sense of touch alone. He winced. The remembered pain was so vivid; he could feel an ache in his legs now.

Curious at how his legs looked now, Hermione's news about his chances of walking again still in the front of his mind, he turned his head slightly to view the damage. There was a lot of it-his left leg was bent slightly, and he could see bright scarlet lines marking up his skin. His skin had been ripped, and, true to her word, Hermione was no Madam Promfrey. Yes, Hermione's thoughts on his chances of walking-or running, dancing, even standing for that matter-were slim.

He turned his gaze back to Hermione. She was easier to face.

He couldn't inspect his back and forehead without moving, so he guessed at the seriousness of those particular wounds. Judging from the crusty line that he could feel in contrast to the rest of his smooth face, there was a slash mark there-one that might not heal. His back, on the other hand, felt awful all over. He didn't think that was a good sign.

He began to feel a little bit guilty about spying on Hermione. He could breathe just fine, so he presumed himself capable of speech. He took a silent breath.

Hermione had been practicing for some time now-her fingers were growing tired. Perhaps she should go check on Malfoy-she could usually find one wound or another that needed attending to.

But just before she could reach the end of the piece, a voice interrupted her playing. Her hands stopped strumming in shock. Draco had woken up and she hadn't even known it! How long had he been awake? A minute? An hour? More?

She whirled around to face him.

"Oh, don't stop playing. You're very good."

Unthinkingly, Hermione resumed playing. She continued to play for the next ten minutes, waiting for Draco to say something else. Finally, she turned her head, switching over to some piece she could play without looking at the strings.

Draco's eyes were slowly lowering. He would be unconscious in a minute.

Just before loosing consciousness again, he murmured something to her.

"Thank you, Hermione."

Hermione sat, stunned. Draco Malfoy had said you. That was different from those last times-she had a good reason to fear for her life the other times he had been awake.

Shocked, she began contemplating the difference.

Why was he civil now? What had changed? Had he perhaps seen the error of his ways? Of course not, she thought to herself. Draco Malfoy won't ever see the error of his ways. When he eventually healed, she would have to fight him, avoiding death at the end of his wand.

She just didn't want that day to come.


	7. He saw, she didn't

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing

**A/N: italic sections are flashbacks of the last week-hope that doesn't confuse you!**

Hermione loved the woods in the morning.

A fine mist hung over the trees, giving them a ghostly look. The air always smelled so fresh and inviting, the kind of scent air-freshener companies would always attempt-and fail-to achieve. The birds were just settling down for the day. Their songs filtered through the mist and underbrush, a soothing background noise.

Malfoy had woken up several times in the past week, a little bit longer each time. When he wasn't sneering and insulting her blood, as he had been in all of her previous memories, he was interesting to talk to. He was very smart, and had a view point on the world that was different from what she had heard from Ron and Harry.

As she walked, she thought back to these conversations. They were the highlights of her day.

_"How do you feel?"_

_"Numb. Just as I have been every time you ask."_

_"So you can't feel your legs?"_

_"Ah, that's why. As you have both said and proved, you are no Madam Promfrey, and you have no idea what to do when this 'temporary measure' of yours has run its course. Hermione, I haven't felt them since..." He trailed off. Hermione had noticed that he didn't like to even think about the mauling if he didn't have to._

_"Since your accident?" _

_"Yes, since then. Hermione, I think you're right. Even if my legs and back do heal, I won't be walking after this."_

_"I shouldn't have said that. There's a chance you'll recover enough to walk-"_

_"A practically non-existent chance."_

_"I mean, there could be a magical process I don't know about, some spell-"_

_"Are you kidding Hermione? You know more spells than I do. You probably know more spells than some teachers. If there was a spell that could fix this, you would know it. You would have read some thick book on it by some obscure wizard I've never heard of."_

_"Draco, I'm trying to be positive, but it won't work if you insist on dwelling only on the negative."_

_"I know."_

Hermione smiled to herself. A crow was overhead, cawing. _CAW-caw, CAW-caw, I-know, I-know. _To hear Draco talk, you would think there was not a think you could talk about that he didn't already know.

Laughing, she continued down the well-worn path to her cavern.

Draco lay on the verge on consciousness. It was getting much easier to open his eyes. He could now do it without aid from Hermione's harp.

Of course, he much preferred to open his eyes and see Hermione coaxing music from the strings as though she was the Pied Piper, a smile on her face.

Draco knew what was happening to him. He was becoming _friends with a Mudblood._ He never would have thought it possible. Then again, he should have known-with all this time for contemplation, most of the things the Dark Lord had told him were becoming nonsense to him.

Hermione was kind to him, exceptionally so. He enjoyed talking to her. He kept their conversations fresh in his mind-memories were all he had to hang onto when he did eventually go unconscious again.

"_Draco, you need to eat something. You haven't eaten in weeks. This is the first time you've been awake long enough to eat. The least you could do is try to stomach some soup."_

_"You're a horrible cook. That nightmare you call soup is repulsive."_

_"Draco, you need to eat something. Starvation won't do you any favors."_

_"If you are desperate for me to eat, then give me something I can stomach."_

_At this point, Hermione grabbed the bowl and forced it to his lips, and tilted it, sending the contents down his still-open mouth before he could close it against the onslaught of soup._

_Draco gagged, and spat it all back out. Some of it landed on Hermione, staining her shirt. Draco waited for her to get flustered, to shout at him, to run off and try to get as much of it off her clothes as possible, but she just picked up the bowl again. Draco could have gone into hysterics if he wasn't a Malfoy. His mother would have thrown a fit over her ruined clothes, but Hermione didn't put as much care into her clothes._

_This time, Hermione snatched some tape before forcing the soup down his throat, and then quickly taped his mouth shut. _

_Draco could have rolled his eyes. Only Hermione could do something as childish as this, yet still achieve her goal. _

_"Draco, be good and drink it. If you get through half or more, I'll bring something tomorrow that you'll like better."_

_The next day, she had followed through, bringing him hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream._

Hermione was so different from the upper-class snobs he had met before now. None of them would have dreamed of letting soup get on their precious clothes, or used tape to achieve their ends. No, they would have whipped out their wands and cleaned away the stain, then paralyzed Draco long enough to pour the entire bowl down his throat.

In other words, the experience would have been a nightmare.

He remembered how Hermione had quickly learned of his love of strawberries in one conversation. She had found some on her way to the cavern one morning, and had asked if he liked them.

_"Do you like strawberries?"_

_"Who doesn't? They're sweet, they have natural sugar, you can bake them into all kinds of desserts, they're the perfect size to fit in you're mouth-"_

_"I didn't know Draco Malfoy actually loved something."_

_"I said like, not love."  
"I've never heard you give one thing so many compliments at one time."_

_Changing the subject slightly, Draco asked "Why do you ask?"_

_"I found some on the way here..."_

_Draco chose that moment to lung forward, wince at the stiffness and numbness that almost halted him from his back, and snatched the little crimson berries from Hermione's hand, and popped them one by one into his mouth. _

_Hermione laughed as bright red juice trickled down his face. This red substance was much more welcome on his face than blood. _

Draco smiled at the memory. Come to think of it, Hermione would be here soon. He began to push at the walls holding him in unconsciousness. He wanted to be awake when she got here.

Hermione came to a stop at the side of her path-she stopped here every morning. Right here was a patch of strawberries, a splash of potential ice cream sundae toppings.

She plucked the berries carefully from their stems, avoiding breaking any.

After that first time she had brought berries and he had downed them in one gulp, he savored every one. It was the only thing he would eat. (He was very vocal about her 'third-rate soup-cooking skills')

Hermione glanced at the bag she had set down on the path beside her. Inside were a strawberry smoothie, bread and strawberry jam, and a piece of strawberry-filled chocolate cake. He really did need to eat something-he was so thin, he would starve if he didn't start eating again. Hermione had been working on a plan to smuggle food to her cavern-her parents knew she had a fort of some sort out in the woods, she would claim she was having a picnic in that fort.

But first, she would give him a test meal today to see how much he _could _stomach-after going for so long without food, his stomach was sure to have shrunk. He couldn't turn up his nose to this-it was practically all strawberries.

Having picked all the berries on that particular bush, Hermione set off again. She couldn't go too fast-she had twisted her ankle yesterday. But she had to pick up _some _speed. Draco didn't like it when she was late.

_Hermione ran down the path, panting hard. She was late, and she knew it. Draco was probably waiting for her. _

_She jumped down the hole in the roots, and sprinted to where Draco lay (candles now a good arm's distance away). _

_"Hermione? Where were you?"_

_"I slept late."_

_Draco looked like he accepted the apology, but he still looked shaken. It obviously frightened him that Hermione might not show up one day. _

_"It's fine, Draco. Take a deep breath."_

_"Hermione, please don't sleep late again."_

_"It's not something I do intentionally."_

_"Don't you have one of those beeping things that Muggles put by their bed that rudely wakes them up in the morning?"_

_"An alarm clock?"_

_"Yeah, that. Well, don't you have one?"_

_"I used to, but one morning it woke me up on my birthday, and I really didn't want to get up. I picked it up and threw it. It went through the window and fell in my neighbor's yard. Their dog tried to eat it. By the time I went and got it, there was no way it would ever wake me up again."_

_Draco laughed at this, all worry about Hermione's absence temporarily forgotten._

Hermione paused-she thought she heard a rustle in the bushes. But it was probably just a bird.

Draco sat up. He could practically hear Hermione's footsteps coming this way.

Draco flexed his arms. Today he would surprise her. He would be waiting for her at the cavern entrance. He couldn't walk, but he had found that his arms had not been hurt badly in the bear attack. So, he could drag himself.

He braced his hand against the uneven floor, and began pulling himself towards the entrance.

Hermione thought he might walk again. Draco knew otherwise. His legs were almost surely useless. He couldn't feel them, which wasn't a good sign. Just looking at them, and seeing how terribly mangled his left leg was another sign.

Well, if he couldn't walk, he might as well be able to get around somehow. The solution wasn't dragging himself, but it was a good temporary measure.

Hermione was practically on top of the cavern. All she had to do was jump down. Then, out of nowhere, a cat appeared. It was her neighbor's cat, who had gone missing about a month ago. Surprised, she froze mid-jump, for just a second.

Hermione was never an acrobat, or really that athletic. Someone with more balance, more strength, better reflexes (basically everyone she knew) would have been able to right themselves after that brief mistake.

Hermione could not.

Not that it would have done her much good.

The tree roots criss-crossed each other, coated in a slippery moss. Hermione usually took care when going down to her cavern, though she did like to jump down the hole instead of just lowering herself.

Even if she had had better reflexes, and had righted herself, she would have come down on these roots and broken something. Hermione, on the other hand, having not righted herself, tumbled right on through the hole, hitting the hard ground.

Draco sat near the entrance. He had done it! He had dragged himself all the way here. He could hear Hermione's footfalls. They were slightly uneven-a twisted ankle?

Then, she jumped. Draco could look up through the hole in the roots. Behind her, in the bushes, was a cat. It looked pretty scared. It broke cover and seemed to pad away from Hermione.

Then Hermione saw it. She froze in surprise. She obviously hadn't seen it. He watched her jump be ruined by the sudden freeze. Her eyes widened. She tried to right herself, but couldn't.

Hermione fell into the cavern, about a foot in front of Draco. She came down hard on her leg. Draco remembered her uneven footfalls and his hypothesis that she had a hurt foot. It was probably true. She came down on her foot hard.

It buckled, sending her crashing down to the cavern floor.

Draco realized too late that he was in her way.

She would have just fallen to the floor, and winded herself badly, maybe even needed to go home, which would have been a nightmare for Draco a few moments ago.

Now, he watched her fall over him and go head-over-heels into the candles that she had moved out of his reach.

Hermione's weight, like the domino effect, sent the candles in front of her crashing, and the ones in front of them crashing. Her hair caught fire.

The candles had started a fire. Draco took one moment to wonder why she hadn't just brought down a lantern instead of the hazardous candles. Then his gaze was brought to her hair. Flames ate at it. Her hair, which had seemed like a flame when he had briefly gained consciousness for the first time after the bear mauling, now really was a flame, made hazy by the smoke that rose hissing like a snake from the fire.

A bag around her waist flopped open, and strawberries and cake fell onto her hands, coating them in red and brown.

Like blood and dirt.

Flames quickly consumed the food, filling the enclosed space with the scent of burnt fruit.

The hole in the roots was too small, and the flame and smoke spreading too quickly. Either they would choke to death without smoke-free air to breathe, or the whole tree would come down on them in fire, burning them to cinders.

Draco watched in horror as flames leaped to Hermione's harp. Her beautiful harp, which had brought him back to the waking world so many times, was falling to the fire, strings burning like Hermione's hair.

He started dragging himself to Hermione's side to help her, though how he could help he didn't know. If he had had his wand, he could have just put out the fire.

But Hermione had taken his wand, and with good reason. She had taken it the day he had promised her with his eyes that he would kill her.

It seemed he was following through on that particular promise.

He thought of the day he had stupidly tried to knock over the candles and kill Hermione. He never would have suspected this, though the fire he would have started would have been near identical to this.

Draco tried to drag himself to Hermione, but he knew he wouldn't make it in time.

Hermione was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.


	8. Smoke

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing

_Hermione was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it._

Draco tried to push that thought out of his mind, but like a weed with deep-reaching roots it refused to be uprooted and cast aside.

He continued his painful journey to Hermione, one that he was sure he couldn't complete in time-it wasn't as if he could drag himself very fast. Then he noticed something-the cavern walls were filled with holes.

Of course-the little nooks and crannies and shelves Hermione used in the wall of her cavern-natural little cubbies created by roots. They made great natural supply-shelves, but they also made terrific hand-holds.

Draco's speed increased slightly with the discovery of these handholds. Not enough to get him to Hermione fast enough to save her, but enough to allow him to delude himself into thinking he could.

His hands would often touch something of Hermione's on these shelves-a jar of something, paper and pens, little candies (he didn't know Hermione had a sweet tooth) and things like that. He was getting used to sticking his hand around the unfamiliar objects to get a good grip, when his hand brushed something familiar.

_His wand_.

Hermione had taken his wand, yes-but apparently she hadn't taken it home-it was still here, in the cavern! He snatched it off of its shelf, falling to the ground in a huff with it in his grasp.

Now he had some way with which to actually fight the fire. He looked up to where Hermione was, planning to send the first jet of water at her hair. If he didn't put that out soon, the fire would spread to every bit of skin her long mane could touch.

The spell was on his lips, but upon seeing Hermione, he faltered, surprised.

Hermione's beautiful harp, strings ablaze as if the fire were playing it, wasn't going to stay upright forever. It began to topple earth-wards. It would shatter upon impact, sending sparks and fiery debris everywhere.

And Hermione was right where it would land.

Suddenly, conjuring water wasn't going to solve all his problems.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, he muttered, '_Wingardium Leviosa_!"

Hermione's figure sprang up about three feet in the air, and then hovered. Still in the way of the harp. Hovering in the air like that, she looked dead. Her eyes were shut and her hands limp, and she didn't seem to be breathing.

Flicking his wrist, he moved her out of danger, out of the hole in the roots, and set her down on the wet soil.

Now that she was out, he had to get out. Not an easy task. He was low to the ground, away from the smoke. But how long would all the smoke fit above him? He had to get out.

That must be why she wasn't breathing, he thought to himself. Smoke inhalation-she was trying to avoid it by not breathing, and passed out. Not good.

He had to get out of here, fast. He began pulling himself back towards the hole in the roots, broken bits and shards of things consumed by the fire like shark's teeth against his chest. He was bleeding, staining his robes strawberry-red. He was making progress, fighting through the stiff resistance in his lower back and left leg. Sweat trickled down his forehead, making the gash where the bear had slashed him sting and scream. He was making a herculean effort.

But it wasn't enough.

He wasn't going to make it.

He had no options-no decisions, no should I run this way or that way. He was a butterfly in a glass jar-he couldn't get to freedom through the glass. Even if he did manage to tip this glass jar over, and smash it on the floor, the shards would shred his wings like they shredded his chest now. And it wasn't as though he could unscrew the lid of the jar.

No, he couldn't unscrew the lid. But maybe he could get out through the ceiling here. It was just dirt and roots, right?

He grabbed a handhold, but instead of pushing forward, he pulled up. He was climbing the walls, using his dead-weight legs as painful anchors. It was slower than he would have liked, but he managed to reach the top. There had been one spot where he had almost fallen, and his wand had slid half-way out of his pocket, but he had made it, wand and all.

It was smoky up here. Snaky tendrils started to accent his hair and skin, to make his breathing less regular. He coughed hard, like he was hacking up his lungs. Eyes closed and watering, he started digging.

If his eyes had been open, he would have noticed that his climb had not been vertical, but diagonal. He was rather close to the opening it the roots, where the soil was thinner between the cavern top and the forest floor. His hands scabbed, cut, bruised, blistered, and got dirtier than any amount of hand lotion could fix in under a day, but he managed to get through to where the roots poked above the ground. Had he been slightly deeper in the cave, he wouldn't have made it, and would have fainted from the smoke, and fell to his death.

He was very lucky.

The question was, did Hermione share his luck?

Gasping the fresh air, he looked over to where his spell had dumped Hermione. The wet moss had dealt with the fire in her hair, though there were some scorch marks in the moss. Her hair was singed and no longer even, and a bit shorter, but she was alive. She was breathing again, but unconscious. Smoke and soot turned her jeans and tee-shirt black like the hide of that bear on that day weeks ago.

Hermione was alive now. He was alive. He could see her wand sticking out of her back pocket. He could feel his wand in his.

He smiled, and could have whooped like a bird and wept for joy. As it was his eyes had begun to tear up from the smoke.

Then he saw Hermione's hands, stained with the cake and strawberries. Red and brownish black. That same black stained her clothes.

As did the red.

Horrified, Draco examined Hermione more closely. She was bleeding from a cut near her belly-button. There was a burn wound on her left knee, and her right leg from the thigh down was black with burnt skin.

She needed medical attention. There were Muggle doctors that could help her.

She would not be doomed to never walk again as he was. He wouldn't allow it.

Taking her hand in his, he dragged her closer to him. He would need to transport her out of these woods.

Looking down at his chest, he realized that he was still bleeding from the debris on the ground. He probably needed some medical attention as well. Pulling out his wand, he began to think.

How to get two bleeding/burnt teenagers out of the woods and to a hospital when one of them was unconscious and the other might join her at any time?

He got an idea. Smiling, he pulled his wand from his pocket.

**Please review and tell me what you think! Reviews give me that little shove of get-up-and-go I need to write these things. Also, when I read them they bring my attention to the story, and when my attention is on the story I can come up with ideas for the next chapter faster, and write them, and post them faster.**


	9. Forest of Mud

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize it, I don't own it.

Smiling, Draco drew his wand, and pointed it at the ground. This whole forest was littered with dirt paths, deer trails and clearings.

Meaning, there was a whole lot of dirt in this forest. And what happens when dirt gets wet? Why, it turns to mud. Cold, slippery mud. Cold, to keep him awake and to soothe any burns. Slippery, because when you can only drag yourself to get around, a slippery surface was easier to get around on. As an added plus, it was easier to drag something through mud than through underbrush.

Laughing, Draco began to summon water, aiming his wand at the ground. There was probably a more elegant way to do this than sliding through mud, but it was the first thing that he had thought up.

His mother would have thrown a fit if she knew what he planned on dragging his robes through.

Laughing, he muttered _Augamenti! _Then again, with more force. Then again, practically screaming. Water streamed from the tip of his wand, hitting the soft, airy dirt, thickening it and making it darker.

Hermione stirred for a moment, and then fell still again. Draco paused, ready to help her if necessary. His glance flashed to the smoldering tree.

His situation could be much worse, but not by much.

Sighing, he turned again to the forest and continued creating the equivalent of a mud waterslide in the middle of the woods.

Soon, he had transformed all the dirt within range into something much more useful. Reaching over to Hermione, he dragged her limp form over the blanket of moss as gently as was possible.

Setting her on the mud, he cringed inwardly at the thought of what he was putting on his clothes. This was unrational, he knew, his they were already in tatters, like he was clad in vulture's wings. Years of living with his mother must have worn off on him.

His chest came in contact with the mud. His chest stung for a brief second, then cooled, soothed by the mud.

He reached out and pulled at the ground. He couldn't get a whole lot of traction, but it was enough. He slid forward, pulling Hermione with him. His hands could have been dipped in chocolate. But chocolate tasted better than the mud. Some had wormed its way into his mouth, and he spat, retching at the lingering taste on his tongue.

He glanced at Hermione. Mud streaked her jeans, splattered her face, and high-lighted her hair. Her hands, which a while ago had been brown with chocolate cake, were now brown with mud. She was covered in mud.

This image jolted an old, dormant memory he had all but forgotten to the front of his mind.

_She stood before him, stern and disapproving. Six-year-old Draco could be silenced with a single look from that stony face._

_"Draco, I hear you have been associating with that boy in town."_

_Draco opened his mouth to protest, but was cut off._

_"And don't you try to dodge this with stupid questions. You know who I'm talking about. I told you never to speak to him again. So why did I find you in a tree next to him, talking the way you would talk to an equal?"_

_"Mommy, he is my equal. He's my friend. And you never told me why I was not supposed to talk to him!"_

_At this she smacked him across the face, one quick, stinging slap. _

_"He is not your equal or your friend. You are not to speak to him because Malfoys don't associate with Mudbloods."_

_"Mommy, what do you mean, Mud-blood?"_

_"I mean someone who is not a pure wizard, someone with Muggle blood staining their veins, making them as pure as mud. Making them ilk to be avoided. Making them ilk for _you_ to avoid. Don't let me see you with him again."_

_That was when his father entered the room._

_"Draco, I want you to do something for me."_

_His father didn't even seem to notice that his mother had been reprimanding him. _

_"I think you are going soft."_

_Draco tried to defend himself, but was once again cut off._

_"I want you to prove to me otherwise."_

Draco sighed. He had taken his father up on his challenge. He had tortured a little girl. He had found out later that that girl was his friend's sister.

He never had another Mudblood friend.

Until Hermione.

Hermione, who was now covered in mud. His mother would have said, "Now_ the outside matches the inside."_

That wasn't true. Hermione wasn't impure. Maybe she wasn't Pureblood, but she wasn't muddy on the inside.

He had reached the end of his water-induced mud, and was halted by hard, solid dirt. He halted, pulled out his wand, and repeated his water-summoning. Then he slid forward, much faster-he had come to a bit of a slope.

Water. Slide. Water. Slide.

The sun was beginning to set. The horizon burned orangelike tropical hibiscus flowers, mango yellow, parrot-feather red, and soft, rosy pink. The trees around Draco practically glowed.

It had been a while since Draco had witnessed a sunset. A couple weeks. His last one he had not appreciated-He had been lying in bed, turning over the Dark Lord's assignment in his mind.

He gazed ahead of him, and smiled. He could see the last dying rays of sun filtering through the trees-he were almost out of the woods.

He continued to push on.

Hermione could remember it all. She could remember tripping over something, and sprawling into the twinkling flickers of fire. She remembered the flickers sparking her hair, turning it into a spotlight for her panicked thoughts.

She remembered her harp looming out of the smoke.

She remembered not being able to find Draco behind the thick stage curtains of smoke.

She remembered not breathing, and the black hole of unconsciousness.

"Draco has to live with this blackness every day." Was her last realization. Then she was lying on something soft and cold. If snow could have been woven into a rug, this would be what it felt like. It felt wonderful on the burns that seethed and screamed that snaked around her abdomen.

But she was alone. Draco was not there.

She could hear her cavern crackling away. Was he still in there?

Then, more blackness.

Finally, cool, soothing, fabulous-mud, maybe honey? Something viscous and slippery. Honey, like the color of Draco's hair by candle light.

Where was Draco? Was he hurt? Was he somewhere near her in this river of honey?

Was he alive?

**Please review! Tell me what you like, what you don't, what was believable, what wasn't-Tell me! **


	10. Out of the Woods

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

His arms burned. He couldn't feel his legs, but if he could, he would have sworn they were dead pythons- they would have been floppy, heavy deadweights. But Draco Malfoy was smiling despite this.

He was out of the woods.

He had dragged himself and Hermione, with the help of mud, all the way from the smoldering tree out to where he could clearly see the sun setting behind the trees, as if the trees were sharpened spear-points, slicing through the sun, making it bleed red across the horizon.

He glanced over at Hermione. She was still out cold, but the cold mud seemed to have helped a tiny bit with the burns. Mud clung to her hair, turning it to sticks, face, and clothes. Somewhere along the way her cheek had hit a root jutting out of the ground, and so she had a black eye as though someone had thrown a plum at her, effectively giving her a bump and leaving some of the plum's color on her skin. She was practically unrecognizable.

Now for the next problem-helping Hermione.

Boy was he glad he had his wand back.

Hermione had been drifting in a thick sea of honey, or was it mud? She didn't know. What she did know was that she had no idea where Draco was.

Suddenly, she was brought to an abrupt halt.

It felt like she had rammed into concrete. She was no longer gliding in a sea-she was now a beached whale.

Then, the beach was lifted away-or, rather, she was. She felt like she was floating.

Draco smiled at how perfect the timing had been. Sunset-that meant that everyone would be asleep in their houses in a neighborhood like this one. He looked over at the one familiar house-Hermione's house. So long ago he had watched her through the windows into her room, waiting for the opportune moment to end her life.

His smile was now gone, replaced with a look that suggested he had just swallowed something bitter-he always frowned on that particular memory.

He returned his mind to the task at hand. With everyone asleep, there would be no one to see them if he tried some magic.

He muttered a few words softly, like breath of wind, and Hermione rose from the ground. She hung in the air for a few seconds, like a tear on the night's cheek.

Then, she opened her eyes.

Draco was caught off-guard, and froze up like a statue.

She stared right at Draco at first bewildered, then smiling. Eventually, she motioned to the ground beneath her. Draco jumped a bit, and then carefully set her down, as though she was a china doll.

She looked around her. "Where are we?"

"We're out of the woods, near your house. Hermione, you're hurt. You need help."

"I don't feel that bad."

"Hermione, look at yourself."

Hermione looked down, and heaved a barely-audible gasp. She had not seen her two burns and cut before now-to say she was shocked was an understatement.

"Oh."

"Yes. Hermione, rather like you, I am no Madame Promfrey. I don't know how to help you. So I'm taking you to a hospital.

"Draco that is an incredibly stupid idea."

"And might I inquire as to _why_ it is so stupid?"

"First of all, if you go to a wizard hospital, people will recognize you, and see your Dark Mark. Secondly, if you go to a Muggle hospital, you would have to show them ID; they would ask you questions-there would be no end to the things that could go wrong in that scenario."

"So what do you propose we do? You can't ignore that cut-you've stained that shirt to the point of no return. It will be a nasty shade of red forever." He was right-she looked like she had rolled in rose petals.

"I propose that we go home, run some cold water over these cuts, put some ice and bandages on them, and then go to bed."

Draco opened his mouth to ask a question, but was cut off. "You are my friend from school over for a sleep-over."

Draco expression quickly went from protest to confusion.

"Well, you are my friend, aren't you? And I did meet you at school, didn't I? And you will be sleeping in my room with me, so you are over for a sleepover."

"What is a sleepover?"

Hermione sighed, and muttered "What kind of kid doesn't know what a sleepover is?" then replied "A sleepover is when you are invited over to a friend's house from the afternoon to the following morning. This time arrangement, of course, leads to you having to _sleep over _at the friend's house. Make sense?"

Some of the confusion left Draco's face, but not all. Still, he nodded.

Hermione sat up with only a little wobble. Draco was beyond surprised to see Hermione sitting up already, not looking very hurt.

"Hermione, you might not want to be sitting up. You hurt your legs, and you're bleeding."  
Hermione laughed again. "Draco, how closely did you actually those burns and that cut?"

"Not very closely." He admitted. In truth, he had only glanced at it several times. He had been much more preoccupied with getting Hermione and himself to safety.

"Draco, I'm hardly bleeding any more. Those burns are not as bad as they look-see?" She brought her hand to her right leg, and touched the ash-colored burn. Her fingertips came away stained as though with nighttime blackness. "The smoke, ash, and dust are what makes it look that bad-it makes the little burn look much worse. And that mud you used helped too-almost like running it under cold water."

Draco sputtered a little. "But, but you passed out!"

"That was from smoke inhalation, not from any actual injury."

Draco was at a loss for words. Hermione smiled.

"Draco, I'm not perfect, but I'm fine. Maybe a week of bandages, but that is pretty much it."

"So you don't need any help?"

"No, not really. But thank you for the sentiment. Come on. Let's go in side-I'll get you something cold to drink. We might have some lemonade in the fridge."

Hermione stood up, and then paused. For a moment she had forgotten the slight problem with his legs. Frowning, she pulled out her wand. A few words uttered, and he was hovering a few inches off the ground, his feet barely brushing the dew-laden tips of grass that lined the pavement.

Draco smiled, and shook his head. He didn't know this particular spell, but he was sure that it was unnecessarily complicated and would have taken most people a few months to master. So of course Hermione knew it.

Hermione walked forward, her wand tip swaying so slightly that you would swear it was just a result of not being able to see clearly now that night had officially fallen. Draco drifted forward at the same pace as Hermione, though he wasn't trying to. Apparently her twitching wand was not the result of absent-minded fiddling with her wand, but intentional.

Hermione led him to the front door of her house, and opened the door, letting him in.

Sure enough, there was lemonade in the fridge, and Hermione got Draco a glass and poured him some before heading over to the sink and snatching a dishrag. She opened a compartment under the fridge, which Draco would soon learn was called a freezer, and removed some ice. She sat down right there on the kitchen floor and began icing her legs. After icing both legs thoroughly, she ran cold water over her cut, wincing slightly.

Draco stood in the kitchen with her the whole time, talking with Hermione. Well, most of the time. After about five minutes, she directed him to a cupboard with spell books in it, telling him to bring her the one with blue flowers in the spine. Apparently it was full of medical spells. It took some exploring, a little time, and he tripped over a laundry bin once, but he eventually found the cupboard, mostly with the help of Hermione's wand. He felt like a puppet with Hermione pulling the strings. He wasn't that upset of playing the part of the puppet-he was just happy that it was Hermione at the strings, not the Dark Lord, not his mother, not his father.

He brought her back the book, and she immediately flipped to the table of contents. Her finger slid down the page like a drop of rainwater down a window as the scanned the different sections, looking for one in particular. Her finger halted over one particular section. Draco craned his neck to read what it was. In bolt print, it read _**Spells for Burns, Cuts, and Other Skin Injuries.**_

Hermione flipped through much of the book, finally stopping on page 537. Her eyes scanned over a block of print, then she took her wand and began treating her burns.

Before Draco's eyes the blackness on Hermione's leg contracted like a flower's petals, until there was nothing left but the faintest of scars. Then she turned her attention to her cut. Her wand waved as the book directed, and her cut shrunk like her burns, closing up like a sown seam, until, like her burns, only a scar stood in testimony to her injuries.

Draco was riveted as he watched Hermione heal herself. She had said she was no Madam Promfrey-this was most likely the book she had used to heal him somewhat after the bear mauling. His attention was so focused on Hermione, that he didn't notice what was happening to him at first.

Hermione's wand, waving over herself, was no loner buoying him an inch above the tile floor. So, he had began to s a sink as slowly as a piece of waterlogged bark slowly sinks under the waves on the surface.

Hermione looked up at him, smirking.

"Draco, are you sure about your conviction that you won't walk ever again?"

Draco started a bit at the suddenness in the change in their silence, but recovered quickly. "Yes."

"Well, you have just proved yourself wrong."

Perplexed, Draco looked down at his legs. His feet were on the floor. He had unconsciously shifted most of his weight to his right leg, which was much less damaged than his left.

He was standing.

And then he was falling.

Crooshanks had crept into the kitchen, and rather like the neighbor's cat out in the woods that had caused Hermione to mess up her jump, neither one of them had seen the cat until it was too late. It had come up and nuzzled Draco, which had over-balanced him.

Draco swatted the cat away from him as he tried to get up. It took him a few tries, but he eventually got it.

"See? You'll walk again-you just need some time to exercise your left leg."

Draco smiled, then promptly half-sat, half-fell next to Hermione and hugged her.

"Thank you." He whispered.

**Please review! Yes, this is the end of the story.**


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